


From the Control Room

by AlynnaStrong



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: 74th Hunger Games, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hunger Games Tributes, Mentors, Victors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-04 15:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15844182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlynnaStrong/pseuds/AlynnaStrong
Summary: Hunger Games mentors have their own space to watch the action, interact with each other, and do their best to keep their kids alive.  This is the 74th Hunger Games as seen from the perspectives of these desperate and/or hopeful mentors.





	1. Chapter 1

Banks of overhead lights snapped on as the mentors began to file into the control room. Twelve two-seater consoles arranged in three rows of four occupied the majority of the space. Each console featured two screens, one for each tribute, displays for their vital signs, and sets of isolation headphones. The main feed for the Games would be playing on the large screen at the front of the room, but the mentors needed the ability to follow their own tribute’s every move. It was rather similar to images of the NASA control room from before the Dark Days, but instead of providing inspiration to the masses, they were sowing fear in some and bringing base entertainment to others.

The first mentors to take their seats were the business-like duos supporting the Career tributes. District 1 featured the formidable brother-sister team of Cashmere and Gloss for Glimmer and Marvel respectively. Their tributes would be allies to the end, of course, so they had the advantage of pooling initial resources and knowing that they could depend on one another for coverage in an emergency. The District 2 mentors, Brutus for Clove and Lyme for Cato, were almost as well in sync. Though District 2 was blessed with many former victors, Brutus and Lyme served together almost every year. Their skillsets complemented one another well, and having a strong platonic friendship outside the Games helped keep their spirits up when the inevitable happened to one or both tributes.

The District 4 mentors came in a bit more slowly due to Mags being unsteady on her feet thanks to a recent stroke. Her co-mentor, most recent victor, and surrogate son, Finnick Odair, stayed back to provide her with support. District 4 was still up-and-coming as a Career district, but no one could doubt the sense of purpose with which Mags approached the task. Even though their tributes had not scored particularly well this year, anyone who could lead a 14 year old to victory must have a keen mind for survival.

The other Districts entered at a more leisurely pace, most holding food or drinks from the catered meal stations in the break room. These mentors generally had tributes with next to no training and thus very long odds. Each year they could only watch the reapings and hope for a particularly physically fit or cunning candidate, and then make the best of what they were given.

Last to arrive was District 3, Beetee guiding Wiress to their station as he did every year. She seemed to be rattling off odds about the nature of the arena between becoming distracted by every small change that had been made to the control room since last year. Patiently, Beetee helped her into place. Her lightening-quick mind was very useful once it focused into the task at hand, but until the Games began she would keep up a running commentary about nothing.

“The bars will open as soon as the cannons stop firing. You in?” Blight asked, hovering around the District 12 console. Haymitch could always be counted on to buy a few rounds, and, like Blight, his mentoring responsibilities tended to end minutes into each Games.

“Not this time. I might’ve had a spot of luck this year.”

Haymitch looked sharper than usual, Blight noticed, like he hadn’t even pre-gamed any white liquor to soften the blow. Blows. As always, he manned the District 12 station solo, mentor to both tributes. That was a conflict of interest if Blight had ever heard one.

“Alright, well, odds in your favor and all that. Mine doesn’t weight 90 pounds soaking wet, so I’ll keep a stool warm for ya.”

Haymitch grunted, already dismissing his old drinking buddy. His eyes shifted back and forth from Peeta’s monitor to Katniss’s, waiting for them to become active.

 

As the twenty-four tributes rose from the ground, all the mentors sat up straighter, even the morphlings from District 6. They knew their urban-based tributes had no chance as soon as they saw it was a wilderness arena. All they could do was watch their kids' final moments in solemnity before seeking oblivion from another lost year.

The Career mentors relaxed a notch when the countdown ended and no one blew up from leaving their pedestal too soon. Jumping the starting gong tended to be the most common cause of death for Careers on opening day. Worse, it pleased the other mentors far too much and led to dark humor and pranks for the rest of the Games.

As the bloodbath began, a few of the younger mentors gave voice to their frustrations.

“I told that idiot not to!” Johanna Mason yelled, slamming her now-black monitor on the side for good measure. Blight, her district partner, clapped a hand onto her shoulder before heading for the bar.

“Never should have happened,” Finnick complained. “We’ve got to work harder.” Mags wordlessly comforted him. He’d had a run of bad luck that year. Not only was there no boy prepared to volunteer from District 4, but then they’d reaped a twelve year old. At least now Finnick could use his charm to draw in sponsors for Mags’ tribute since she could barely speak.

Wiress squealed at seeing her tribute’s blood, but within moments she transitioned to working alongside Beetee for the boy. He seemed to have successfully allied with the Careers, which was the best possible result for a boy raised in the city with no practice hunting or foraging.

All in all, eleven tributes died in the bloodbath. Districts 6, 7, and 9 lost both, while 3, 4, 5, 8, and 10 each lost one. Districts 1 and 2, and surprisingly 11 and 12 were untouched – a strange distribution to be sure.

Haymitch looked like he was watching a tennis match, constantly shifting his focus between the two monitors. His hands tightened into fists when Katniss jogged a few steps toward the Cornucopia. Fortunately, she’d been struck by a rare burst of good sense after Clove killed a boy right next to her and just missed hitting her. She grabbed the closest supplies and retreated into the forest. Peeta, always a dependable boy, had followed orders and joined with the Careers. By the end of the day, they were using him as a pack mule for their equipment, and he was bearing it with self-deprecating humor.

Porter Millicent Tripp from District 5 muttered, “No, no, no,” at her monitor when her tribute randomly collided with the District 12 girl while both were fleeing into the woods. She didn’t expect any mercy from a child of the poorest district, not when 5 was one of the wealthiest. Poor Fynch had a brilliant mind but no fighting skills at all. However, the girls merely stared at one another for a moment, then ran off in opposite directions. Fynch’s vital signs looked normal within minutes. Porter’s own took longer to return to baseline. She’d almost lost her niece by a stupid, random accident. It couldn’t happen again.

Seeder and Chaff of District 11 had been granted tributes of vastly different styles. Seeder’s tiny, little Rue could travel tree to tree without touching the ground and live off foraging for quite a while. Even if she hid until the final two, however, Seeder was having trouble finding her a path to victory. Chaff’s Thresh was the opposite. Huge and strong from working in the fields since his youth, he could give any of the tributes a challenge in combat. He needed to eat a great deal to keep up his energy, though, and District 11 was far too poor to sponsor him. Chaff knew he would have to do some distasteful extra work to bring in the sort of money Thresh would need if he made it close to the end.

 

After the bodies from the bloodbath were airlifted away, the control room quieted considerably. Nearly half of the mentors were gone, their stations shut down for the year. The seven-member Career pack paused to take stock of their supplies and plan their hunting strategy. Many of their mentors likewise huddled together, paying close attention not only to what their tributes had found but also to any gaps they could fill. Food seemed plentiful this year, perhaps a hint that much of what was in the wilderness was poison. Weapons were adequate and varied. Camping and medical supplies were somewhat more generous than usual. They speculated about possible twists this distribution might foreshadow.

“Mutts, I bet,” Brutus said. “Lots of ‘em. They blend right in with the regular beasts in the forest. Kids’ll get close thinking they’re hunting rabbits ‘n shit. BAM! Steel claws and five-inch fangs right for the jugular!” He laughed at seeing Cashmere and Gloss twitch as he pretended to pounce. His chair tilted backwards from the force and slammed into the ground as he jumped to his feet.

Lyme was used to his displays. It was how he handled the nervous energy from the bloodbath and his not-so-secret desire to be back there. “Don’t discount the possibly of weather phenomena,” she said. “What looks like a clear, blue sky can turn into a threat far more quickly in the arena than in nature. They didn’t include all those tarps and sleeping bags for no reason.”

“Fair point, but I hope it’s something sexier than that,” Cashmere said. The District 1 tributes had been responsible for the lion’s share of the bloodbath deaths. They were trained to make stylish, attention-getting kills, whereas the 2s worked more methodically. District 1 generally suffered a severe drop in their effectiveness after the first day when drama yielded to expertise. She welcomed a weird twist that would throw the District 2 plodders off their game.

“They won’t let the audience become bored, you can count on that,” Gloss said, resting a hand on his sister’s arm. This year’s tributes meant nothing to him. Their faces were already starting to blur with those from the past, and he hadn’t even been serving as a mentor for long. Getting one of them out – young, attractive, and raised with a taste for luxury – would mean less attention on him and his sister, though, so he would give it his all.

The six remaining non-Career tributes were all traveling solo. Their nervous mentors largely approved as they found semi-safe places to sleep for the night. Few of them had earned much in the way of sponsorship yet, but provided they could survive a few days, interest in dark horse candidates might start to notch up.

Haymitch felt that Katniss had done well for herself. Her survival instincts had kicked in after a bumpy start, and she was now secure high up in a tree with a decent mix of supplies. So long as she found water tomorrow, she would have all her needs met for the near future. He was about to shift his attention to Peeta when Cecelia’s urgent voice broke through the low din of the control room.

“No, no, baby. What are you thinking?” the District 8 mentor desperately asked her monitor. Her exhausted tribute couldn’t hear her, of course. She continued to build her campfire, probably proud of putting that new skill to use and not realizing that it would bring other tributes down on her location.

Haymitch discovered with a start that Cecelia’s unwise tribute was camped very near Katniss’s tree. He muttered low curses into his hands. If the Careers found her due to such a blatant comedy of errors, he was giving up. He’d drink until he found his personal nadir, the boy be damned.

The Careers, including Peeta, appeared on the screen. They fell on the girl, to Cecelia’s muted sob, leaving her for dead. Haymitch heard Katniss gasp as she realized Peeta had joined the Career pack. Again, he promised himself blissful unconsciousness if Katniss’s temper got the better of her and she attacked Peeta without understanding what was really happening.

Miracle of miracles, Katniss hunkered down and didn’t draw attention to herself. Even when the others goaded Peeta into finishing off the District 8 girl, Katniss maintained her position in silence. Haymitch tried to convince himself that she would figure out Peeta was just trying to throw the Careers off her trail. Her score of 11 from training had rattled them, and they’d made hunting her down a priority. Even as he thought it, he knew the odds were bleak. Inspiring, determined, resourceful, sure; she was all that. But smart… no. If he wanted her to understand how things needed to go with Peeta, he would need to find a way to spell it out for her.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The second day of the Games always allowed for a lull in the action. Capitol viewers could still be entertained with replays of the plentiful kills from yesterday’s bloodbath, with added analysis of the triumphant fighters. Gamemakers found that allowing the surviving tributes a chance to regroup and plan strategy led to a more satisfying narrative than speeding straight from combat to combat (though the Games with the constant amphetamine gas had been fun, especially once the tributes started hallucinating). From a practical standpoint, Games that lasted less than two weeks tended to be considered non-memorable. Putting on a boring show could be a death sentence… for a Gamemaker’s job security at least.

The Career pack set up camp near the lake, effectively cutting off the other tributes from the best source of water. Aldiss from District 3 made a big deal of the difficulty involved in digging up the mines, reactivating them, and setting them out as traps. He tremblingly volunteered to retrieve any needed supplies since he knew the only safe route. Beetee gave a tight smile that anyone who knew him would recognize as jubilant celebration. He had coached his tribute to lay it on thick so that he would not outlive his usefulness once the mines were in place.

The core of the Careers (Districts 1, 2, and the surviving girl from 4) devised a hunting schedule focused exclusively on the other tributes. They had enough food supplies not to bother with foraging and knew their best way to draw in sponsors was to eliminate the long shots, preferably in interesting ways. The District 1 and 2 mentors met occasionally, already starting to look beyond the alliance. Twelve deaths on opening day, leaving seven Careers and five long shots – it should have been straight forward. Hunt down the long shots, then kill off the weak Careers (District 3 boy, District 12 boy, District 4 girl, in that order). Conclude with a grand District 1 versus District 2 melee. In their opinion, every Games should end this way. Something felt off this year, however.

“Can we all admit that the problem is the District 12 girl?” Lyme asked. Katniss Everdeen’s unsettling score of 11 left shockwaves in the Training Center that had yet to fade away.

“I’d feel a hell of a lot better about it if we knew what she did to earn it,” Brutus said. “Sure, I don’t love that the District 11 boy tied us with his 10, but one look at him gives me a good idea what he can do.”

A smug smile drifted across Cashmere’s lips. Poor District 2; if brains were dynamite, they couldn’t blow their noses. District 1 knew how to pry secrets out of starstruck junior Gamemakers. “I know something, but it’ll cost you,” she said.

“We’re allies,” Lyme replied, annoyed.

“Oh unclench. It doesn’t even involve you, stiff. I need that victor from 2 with the filed teeth to keep a date for me. I’ve got a biter, and I’d like to give him a taste of his own medicine.”

“That is a profoundly bad idea.”

“He’s not that influential. I don’t think there’s much risk of President Snow getting involved. Guess it depends on how badly you want to know about 12.”

“I’ll talk to Enobaria. I think she’ll probably love to do it. Now spill,” said Brutus.

“See what Glimmer’s carrying?” Cashmere asked, tapping on her monitor. Marvel and Glimmer moved silently through the forest searching for any trace of another tribute. A silver bow was strapped to Glimmer’s back. “I had it on good authority that a high-quality bow would be in the Cornucopia because a certain tribute pulled some attention-getting stunts during her individual session. I told Glimmer to take it for herself at all costs.”

Gloss gave his sister a quiet clap to acknowledge her cleverness. “Without the bow, all 12 has is stealth and a few survival skills,” he said. “No way she can fight up close; she’s too weak and small. Once she burns through the calories she packed on during training, she’ll get desperate. They can afford to let her wander until then.”

The Career mentors sat back, satisfied for the moment that their tributes were on track. They could continue with their usual strategy, and give the Capitol a glorious finish.

 

Haymitch hadn’t had both his tributes survive to see the second day’s sunrise in years. Getting the girl out would take cunning and a fantastic amount of luck, but he’d rate it as possible. He felt far more hope than he usually allowed and resisted the urge to squelch it. The first years after his victory, he’d foolishly thrown himself into the work, trying his hardest and getting attached (sometimes to both kids, like an absolute imbecile). He thought he’d learned his lesson and sufficiently deadened his sympathies. The seam girl had a spark, though, a real fire behind her eyes. And she didn’t even know it.

Peeta played his part perfectly among the Careers, consistently throwing out disinformation about Katniss. Haymitch had seen tributes ready to die before; sometimes being reaped just broke them. He’d never seen one so eager to sacrifice his life for someone else, though. If Peeta died in the course of making Katniss the victor, he’d probably count himself lucky. Haymitch didn’t have the heart to tell him that there were no true winners, and that by volunteering for her sister, Katniss had made clear the best way to manipulate her. Still, Haymitch supposed… most days… that it was better to leave the arena alive than otherwise.

The “real” Careers never left Peeta alone. Haymitch had trouble estimating how many of Peeta’s lies about Katniss they believed, but he didn’t think it was a majority. He considered sending Peeta a pair of District 12 biscuits as a signal that they didn’t trust him, but chose to save his money. Peeta could be trusted to read a room. He was smarter than he looked and kept his stories consistent. The Careers would soon lower their guard around him. In a few days, they’d give him a little leeway, and he could flee with a bunch of supplies. At that point, he and Katniss could reunite. They would make a formidable team, so long as she didn’t kill him on sight.

Haymitch almost had to pinch himself when he realized Katniss was actually adhering to his advice. She hiked deep into the woods and set up snares, making every effort to avoid leaving a trail. Soon, she’d accumulated a small stockpile of foraged food and was heading in the direction of water. Haymitch thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to get some sleep tonight. He’d stay on the couch in the break room, not his apartment obviously, but still.

 

Fynch knew a lot about foraging for a tribute from District 5. It was the ‘from District 5’ part that worried Porter. Their zone was largely urban and wealthy enough that almost no one took tesserae. Porter even slipped some of her victor’s stipend to her brother to make sure he and his children always had enough to eat. In her heart, she knew she’d been making preemptive amends. Family members of former victors found themselves reaped so often that it was almost predictable. The empty-headed Capitolites always professed amazement (and scarcely hidden delight) when it happened, so… it kept happening. Even when the victor in question had done everything – _everything_ – asked of her.

Her niece was gifted with a nearly photographic memory for anything on the printed page. She’d memorized a great deal of medical information and aced the tests for edible plants. She was discovering that they looked a lot different in the wild, however. Already Porter had sent her two packages containing bread as a hint (which she’d mercifully understood) to stay away from certain plants she’d been examining. Even District 5 didn’t have the money to keep that up for long.

Once Fynch settled in for the night, Porter would have to pay a visit to her friends from District 6. Her Games left her with permanent spinal damage serious enough that she was allocated Capitol-grade morphling each month. She could sacrifice the vial for this month’s final week if they would pledge generously for Fynch. Hopefully it would only take one vial. If the Games weren’t over before she ran through her personal supply, she’d be left working to help Fynch while experiencing an agony almost beyond description.

 

It was a miracle that his tribute had survived this long, and Bolt knew it. When the boy limped onto the District 10 reaping stage, he’d ground his teeth and prepared for another year of enduring meaningless Capitol prattle after an early exit. At those times, he could almost empathize with the other outer district mentors and their drinking and drugging. They were weak, embarrassingly so, and he’d never stoop to their level. Still, the desire to turn off the pain was only human. They couldn’t be blamed for not having Iam to lift them up. Worship of any sort was forbidden – the preeminent loyalty in a citizen’s heart must be to Panem – so they did not know the errors of their ways.

The boy’s name was properly Marion, but everyone called him Hoof due to his clubbed foot. From the beginning, he’d refused to allow Bolt to write him off. He said he’d talked about the Games with his Father, and would heed His advice. Soon, Bolt realized that his over-enunciation of ‘Father’ and ‘His’ were no accidents. Hoof was a believer, too. He wanted to use the victor’s stage to communicate with the people about a power higher than that of President Snow. If Iam judged the time ripe, He would guide their path.

In the beginning, Iam truly did seem to be smiling on them. Hoof found a generous cache of supplies practically at his feet on opening day. He needed to do little but stoop down and take them, then flee in the opposite direction from the Cornucopia. He successfully avoided a colony of toxic tree frog muttations and a patch of bright green mushrooms with sleep-inducing spores. His slow foot-speed might cause problems later, but for now he had enough of a head start on the Career pack that Bolt wasn’t worried. Hoof could rest for a few days, live off his supplies and allow the others to thin the herd.

 

Rue kept moving, and Seeder found her almost hypnotic to watch. Her posture looked like she expected to take flight as she leapt from branch to branch. She managed to survey a large chunk of the arena without anyone ever knowing she flitted above them. Seeder mapped the various dangers as she went – tracker jackers, poisonous frogs, paralyzing lichen. They might need to make use of them if she wanted any chance at victory. Sadly, Rue did not seem to be playing to win. She gathered medicinal plants and foraged food but made no preparations for offense.

A few arenas from the past had crowned victors by default, when mutts or terrain hazards finished off the runner up before a final battle. Audiences hated the anti-climax, however, so it hadn’t happened in decades. Seeder knew she needed to get through to Rue, to let her know that she would have to kill at least one person if she wanted a chance at growing up.

 

Thresh got what he wanted most after the bloodbath – solitude. He fled into the grain fields, and no one chased after him. Chaff’s frustration with his tribute grew by the hour. Thresh had seemed so promising when he mounted the reaping stage. Tall, strong, even handsome, he appeared to have more innate talent than any of this year’s Careers. However, there was no warrior’s heart in him. He was the sort of boy who finished fights, not one who started them.

He refused an alliance with the Careers. He didn’t want to stalk through the forest hunting down the easy-pickings tributes to enhance his sponsor pool. He killed one boy in the bloodbath, true, practically by accident. They were tussling over supplies and Thresh threw him down, breaking his neck. Such potential! However, he made it clear he intended to stay out of the action for as long as possible. All well and good for his conscience, Chaff supposed, but it was no help with the sponsors. Chaff had half a mind to send him a knife once he started to starve. Maybe then he would take the hint.

 

The third day saw the tributes settling into a routine. The Careers hunted for the rest using a methodical search plan. The others scattered, fleeing toward the edges of the arena and away from the Career’s central camp. Those who didn’t happen upon enough food or water received sponsor gifts to keep going. In general, mentors blew through their funds as quickly as they were received. Prices only went up, and a mentor who was stingy with their tribute today may find the kid not alive to receive generosity tomorrow. (The Careers had a few of their own special rituals, saving for pre-melee feasts and, in the case of a single district finale, personalized weapons).

Haymitch watched as the price of water jumped every 15 minutes. He could send it to her. Hell, he could send her enough to bathe in. The sponsorships kept coming, and he’d barely even shaken hands with anyone this year. Effie would probably say that was helping. At any rate, they’d already out-earned the last ten years put together, easy. The money wasn’t the point. Katniss needed to learn how he would communicate with her. She was so near water that she should be able to smell it. He had some sympathy about the amount of stress the Games put on a person, but if she didn’t start using her brain, she was going to die. _Think, Katniss, what’s the only reason I wouldn’t be sending you water now?_

Finally, she found it. She literally fell flat on her face into the mud, but she found it. Not a moment for the highlight reel. Maybe it was the dozen cups of coffee he drank recently, but Haymitch believed he glimpsed the light of understanding dawning in her eyes at last.

 

In the Gamemaker-only Central Chamber, Seneca Crane traced his elaborate beard with his fingertips. His assistant Gamemakers glanced up from their stations when he began to speak.

“No deaths in almost two days. Is 12F still approaching the border?”

“Yes sir. She’s the furthest, but 5F, 10M, and the 11s are all spread out as well. Most of them are settling in and making nests. None but 11F ever comes within 100 meters of the group camped in the Cornucopia.”

“So be it… then let’s activate here, here, and here,” Seneca touched several points on the 3-D display, “and sweep to here. Fire up the generators on my count. Get it? Fire up,” he grinned. This would get them moving again.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The wall-sized monitor at the front of the control room showed a torrent of fire advancing from the outer edges of the arena. The mentors took careful note of their tribute’s positions and calculated how long they had before the inferno reached them. A quick check of the sponsorship gift lists caused even the Career mentors to grumble at the simultaneous jump in the prices of fire retardant blankets, breathing masks, and burn ointment.

Beetee and Wiress were confident that Aldiss would be safe. The Careers had left him behind to guard their trove of supplies at the Cornucopia. Therefore, he was both centrally located and near water. The fire was obviously intended to drive wandering tributes in from the outer edges. Aldiss spent his unobserved time stringing trip wires and digging decoy pits to make the path to the supplies appear even more convoluted. His mentors took the opportunity to send him a few small items, harmless in themselves but when combined properly, they made a potent poison. Before he could use it, of course, his protectors had to finish off the other tributes.

Thresh also should be safe from the fire, Chaff concluded. The Gamemakers wouldn’t have it sweep into the grain field. It would burn far too quickly, essentially executing Thresh. Audiences liked arena hazards to upset the odds with random injuries and drive the tributes together, not actually take anyone out of the Games. No, Thresh’s biggest problem was food. He’d already eaten through his initial supplies and was proving next to useless at hunting. He could catch worms and grubs, but that was about it. Coming from District 11, at least he could identify most non-poisonous plants, but foraging was proving insufficient to keep up his alertness. Once the fire storm resolved – hopefully after leading to a few Career deaths – Chaff would force his avoidant tribute into the fray.

Fynch caught the tail-end of the fire. She tumbled out of the way gracefully, showing that some good had come from all those gymnastics lessons. Her nimbleness and flexibility brought in a few small donations. They were from perverts, Porter noted, but she’d not turn them down. Fynch proved smart enough to allow herself to be driven in by the fire and lucky enough not to encounter anyone else. She ended up with the Cornucopia in her sight and settled into the undergrowth to observe the odd behavior of the District 3 tribute guarding the supplies.

Hoof’s limp proved a serious impediment as he tried to flee from the flames. He barely stayed ahead of them for a while, then began to slow, suffering the effects of smoke inhalation. Bolt did the only thing he could and blew their entire bank on a filtered breathing mask. Hoof thanked the heavens, put it on, and got moving again. He was quite intelligently trying to make his way behind the fire line when the fireballs started. Clearly aimed by the Gamemakers, they were meant to amuse the viewers by forcing the tributes to dodge and weave in the dynamic, smoky atmosphere. The launchers featured a warning sound, so a few tributes might get singed, but no one should be seriously injured. Unfortunately, they didn't take into account that Hoof needed more lead time than the others. He took a direct hit to the gut from an apple-sized fireball. He screamed, curled up like a fetal pig, and did not move. Perhaps realizing their mistake, no further fireballs followed. However, Hoof seemed to be going into shock, and Bolt now had no way to help other than prayer.

The Career pack was chasing someone through the trees when the firestorm started. Seeder sat up straight, suddenly very attentive. She’d been almost enjoying watching Rue lead the Careers in circles. There hadn’t seemed to be any danger in it. With three jumps, she could be far away in any direction and much too high for them to climb in any event. The fire was a problem of an entirely different magnitude. It could travel randomly through the treetops, possibly trapping Rue and forcing her to the ground. Seeder felt her terror escalate as Rue jumped onto a smoking limb, then promptly jumped away… and away… and away. By the time she realized that Rue had found safety, Seeder’s hands were sore from the white-knuckled grip she’d kept on her console. She admitted to herself then that she cared about this precious child more than she had any of the others. She desperately wanted to help her win. And she still didn't know how.

_Damn Katniss’ stubborn hide,_ Haymitch thought. _If she hadn’t hiked so far towards the boundary she wouldn’t be this far up shit creek._ She was much deeper into the woods than the others, so she had a longer path to safety through rougher terrain. Still, she was doing fine staying ahead of the flames until she had the bright idea to try to get behind the fire line into the area that had already burned. In a regular situation, Haymitch acknowledged, that would be a reasonable plan. She probably thought she was being smart because no other tributes would be there. However, going against the Gamemakers was right up there with insulting your stylist’s taste in terms of bad ideas. _You have to work with their storyline, Sweetheart. They sure as fuck don’t want to be outsmarted by some hick tribute._

He snorted in disgust as the fireball launchers started to track Katniss. She was plenty nimble enough to stay out of their way, but they might tag her to teach her a lesson. Yep, Haymitch nodded in cold satisfaction as she took a wound to her right calf. He reached into his jacket for his flask, which an earlier, wiser him had left in the apartment. He sighed. Well, she was on her feet again even if she had managed to burn her hands stripping away the flaming material from her leg. She cleared the fire zone and found water to soak in. Acceptable. Now she just had to avoid fainting and ending up a sitting duck when the other tributes flushed out by the fire found her. He reached for his flask again then pounded his table in frustration.

 

“What do they need? What can we do?” Cashmere asked the huddle of Career mentors. Even Mags (with Finnick’s assistance) had hobbled over to join. Though none of the five tributes’ vital statistics looked seriously impaired, the fire represented the greatest challenge they’d faced thus far and signaled that the post-bloodbath lull was over.

“They all escaped burns, thank the ‘Makers, so we’re pretty much at baseline. I’ll use my discretion on some steroids for Cato if his breathing gets worse,” Lyme said, receiving thumbs up all around. Medicine was always expensive, but he’d breathed in a pretty good dose of smoke. That he’d done so while helping the others find a path out of the blazes helped his case quite a bit.

Mags said something low enough that only Finnick could hear. Her slurred speech made her difficult to understand, but he loved her and spent so much time with her that he found it trivial.

“Mags says it’s time to invest in some night vision glasses. We can afford two pair and still have enough in the bank for emergencies. It’ll let them hunt at night, and maybe escalate things. Keep further surprises off the table.”

“That’s a good idea.” Brutus jerked his head to the monitor showing the Game’s main feed. “A few of ‘em are injured and won’t be going far. And look at 12. She’d need fucking wings to get out of there in time. Our kids are headed straight for her.”

Haymitch could hear Brutus’s booming voice and feared there was some merit to his assessment. He would love to send Katniss some pills to soothe her pain and help get her moving again. However, the burn ointment she really needed was nearly within reach. Another sponsorship or two and he could get her back in the Games for real rather than just masking a symptom. _Please, Katniss, don’t grey out. We can turn this around,_ Haymitch begged.

Cato’s coughing gave Katniss the bare minimum of warning that she needed. She scrambled up the nearest tall tree, adrenaline preventing her from feeling the worst of the pain. The Capitol audience must have found her playful taunting of Cato amusing because the donations started to flow again. Capitolites loved a cheeky tribute. Once her position high in the tree seemed stable, Haymitch sent the burn ointment on its way. With Peeta acting as a mole among the Careers, he felt she had a pretty good chance of escaping what would otherwise seem a dire situation.

Cashmere grimaced as Glimmer displayed her incompetence with the bow. “I kept it out of Everdeen’s hands anyway. Teaching Glimmer to shoot a hundred feet through heavy foliage wasn’t on the agenda.”

The Career mentors were generally frustrated with the inability of their tributes to reach the treed Katniss. Still, so long as they weren’t foolish enough to leave Peeta on guard duty alone, they would refrain from taking action. It wasn’t like she could leap from tree to tree like the girl from 11.

Haymitch and Seeder made eye contact shortly after Katniss and Rue had done the same. So far as they knew, the four of them were the only ones aware of the tracker jacker nest hidden high in Katniss’s tree. Smoke from the fires had dulled the insects’ activity so they made little noise. Haymitch and Seeder hoped that the Capitol commentators would refrain from calling too much attention to it on the main feed. If it stayed secret until morning when the insects recovered their psychotic ferocity, they could be the very ticket Katniss needed out of her trap.

 

Even Haymitch was shocked at how much Katniss’s hands and leg healed overnight. He’d seen the miracles of Capitol medicine firsthand before, and still counted himself impressed. And bitter. Most of District 12 had access to nothing better than herbal remedies illegally gathered from the forest. It was obviously within the Capitol’s power to lighten their burden – even surplus or expired drugs would help, but they chose to do nothing.

Gloss was in the process of ribbing his sister about her tribute falling asleep on guard duty when all hell broke loose. At first Career mentors and tributes alike had no idea what was happening. Peeta yelled for everyone to run for the lake while the mentors scrambled back to their stations. Cashmere and Mags watched their tribute's vital signs spike dangerously, still having no reason for the cause.

Finally, Caesar’s voice from the main feed filtered through the control room. He was discussing tracker jackers and their dangerous, hallucinogenic venom. Tracker jackers were a fairly common hazard to be inserted into the Games where they would weaken tributes with a sting or two. These, however, had boiled out of their hive by the thousands. The mentors watched the replay, showing Katniss sawing through the tree limb and dropping the nest on everyone gathered below. By the time it was done, the canon for Mag’s tribute had already fired, and Cashmere knew that Glimmer was also beyond help.

“You need to get her. Do not break the alliance until you destroy her,” Cashmere snarled, meeting the eyes of her brother, Lyme, and Brutus before pushing back from her console. Glimmer was moments from flat-lining, and as soon as she did, Cashmere would begin enacting her usual coping strategy. She would get roaring drunk, have some indiscriminate sex (on her own terms for a change), probably hurt someone, then sleep. The next morning, she would hope the numbness carried over to help her do whatever she needed to do so that Gloss’s tribute would take home the win.

Haymitch counted three stings on Katniss after she pulled off her sneak attack. Not fatal, but not great. She stumbled out of the tree while the wasps were away (good) and pried the bow out of Glimmer’s cooling hands (better). She didn’t receive a huge wave of new sponsorships, however. Cunning strategy was always less popular than visceral combat. Viewers didn’t like how she’d uglied up the District 1 girl, and they absolutely hated that she hadn’t tried to warn Peeta. Haymitch thought that was interesting. People had really bought into the star-crossed lovers narrative. He would have to figure out how to nudge Katniss towards it.

His heart leaped into his throat as he looked at his monitor to see Katniss unsteadily pointing her new bow at Peeta. _Well, that didn’t last long._

She was plainly losing consciousness, however, and probably hallucinating. She forfeited any attack and knelt by Glimmer’s body waiting for him to finish her.

“What are you still doing here? Are you mad? Get up! Get up! Run!” Peeta yelled. He even prodded her with his spear.

_He really does love her,_ Haymitch knew. He wondered if Katniss would figure it out now, provided she survived the aftermath of the stings. It probably won’t matter, Haymitch realized, as Peeta chose this moment for his grand sacrifice. Cato, wasp-stung and pissed, ran back to the site of the disaster. To distract Cato from Katniss’s lumbering trail, Peeta attacked him. Cato’s training took over, and he dealt Peeta a grievous leg wound before succumbing to the power of the tracker jacker hallucinations.

Peeta managed to crawl away, but Haymitch would not put good odds on his survival, long or short term. Of course, having attacked a member of the Careers severed him from any shared financial resources, so Peeta was basically on his own. Haymitch didn’t even think he could afford to send him a needle and thread to sew up the gash in his leg. He rubbed his temples. _Not like he planned on surviving anyway,_ he told himself.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes that girl didn’t know how lucky she was, Haymitch thought. Katniss crashed through the forest while under the influence of the tracker jacker venom, making no effort to disguise her trail. She finally collapsed in a shallow ditch, filthy enough to be camouflaged with the ground. She slept a full 36 hours while Haymitch anxiously monitored her vital statistics. It would be of no aid to send her any supplies until she was conscious to retrieve them. He’d potentially do more harm than good if another of the tributes spotted the parachute, so Haymitch was forced to do what he hated the most: sit on his hands and wait. Sober.

His only encouragement came from the fact that the Careers had fared worse. Even putting aside the two who died, all the rest received at least three stings. Since they didn’t know to pull out the stingers, they took in more of the venom and were all too incapacitated to hunt the next day. Even their poor supplies guard, Aldiss from District 3, was stung by wasps that trailed the Careers all the way back to their camp.

The evening following the wasp attack, the Career mentors met to discuss sending expensive tracker jacker venom antidotes to their tributes.

“I say we send ‘em. The money does no good sitting in the bank. They’ve got a shit ton of food in that stack, plenty of weapons, all the regular supplies they need. We've got to get them back out there hunting while some of the other tributes are still down,” Brutus argued.

“It’s not going to work, Brutus. We can’t afford it,” Lyme countered. “There are three of them, not counting Aldiss, and even if we spend everything, we can only afford two doses.”

“You understand Marvel would have to get one,” Gloss stated firmly.

“Of course,” Lyme said, cutting off Brutus’ objection. “About half the money comes from District 1 sponsors. We know that. So it would be Marvel and… I don’t suppose you’d allow Clove to go untreated.”

“No! She’s the littlest. She needs it the most,” Brutus said, his mother hen instincts triggered.

“So we seem to be at an impasse.” The need for accord among allies for serious expenditures sometimes resulted in these sorts of tangles. They all knew without needing to say so that while Districts 1 and 2 were traditional allies, they were rivals as well. Leaving a tribute at a disadvantage to the other Careers was tantamount to signing their death warrant.

“That’s not what Cashmere would want,” Gloss said. “She’s right that the alliance needs to remain strong or 12 is going to run the table.”

“Well, unless she’s using her fancy ass to get us some more money, I don’t think she really gets a say anymore,” Brutus replied. District 2 enjoyed a special relationship with the Capitol due to supplying it with peacekeepers, most of them graduates from the tribute academy. Its victors were given much more freedom with their spare time, so Brutus did not entirely understand what Cashmere had to go through each year during her visit to the Capitol. His money-making liaisons may make him feel like a whore, but at least they were all his own choice.

A vein bulged in Gloss’s neck. “She’s doing what she can. Glitter died less than twelve hours ago,” Gloss said in a strained voice. Lyme watched him make a fist and prepared to step between the two men.

“Glimmer,” Lyme corrected. “Maybe you should take it easy on the stims. Go get a few hours of rack time. I don’t think the kids are going anywhere for a while. We’ll see how things look in the morning.”

 

Fynch, hiding near the Career camp, had been stung once. Porter thought she handled it with efficient grace. She managed not to give away her location by screaming and slipped off into the woods. The proper leaves to draw out the venom proved elusive, but she kept searching while her left hand grew a golf ball sized lump. She seemed to fight with some imaginary ants for a bit, but got back on track, and finally found the plants she needed. Once she applied the treatment, she sat back exhausted and allowed whatever visions would come to wash over her.

 

Thresh remained maddeningly stationary in his grain field. He no longer bothered to forage, he just sat still as if waiting for the Games to come to him. Chaff dithered back and forth. He had enough money to send him a knife or a meal, but not both. Thresh was neither a coward nor an idiot. He must know that staying put was yielding no sponsorships. In fact, he had earned nothing recently; the only money in his account was from regular District 11 donors and what Chaff had brought in by his own personal efforts. Without money, he would keep deteriorating until he eventually faced well-fed tributes with their choice of weapons and body armor. Finally, Chaff pushed a button, sending a gift on its way. He damned himself for his soft-heartedness in sending the meal, but Thresh would really need the energy in the coming days. To make his point, Chaff used a small part of the funds to include a note. The Gamemakers charged by the character, so he had to be brief. The note read, “$=0.” He hoped that got the dire situation across to Thresh. It was kill or be killed time now.

 

Seeder watched Rue slinking closer and closer to Katniss. The older girl seemed to fascinate Rue; she’d been her little shadow in the training center as well. Katniss practiced with her new bow, managing to kill a rabbit and a groosling. Suddenly, Seeder saw the bow shift towards Rue. She barely had time to fear for Rue before Katniss realized who it was, invited her over, and offered an alliance. Seeder was more suspicious than Rue at this turn of events. After seeing Rue treat Katniss’s stings and Katniss share out her food, she realized with relief that they really did have talents to offer one another. While their tributes combined their supplies, Seeder and Haymitch combined their bank accounts. Katniss had proven a golden goose for bringing in funds, and even Rue had brought more than usual for District 11 with her fairy-like charm. This strange alliance actually had a chance.

Haymitch listened with interest at Rue’s account of Peeta’s struggle against Cato. He’d been keeping an eye on Peeta, who was hiding on the banks of the stream near a cave. Peeta lost of a lot of blood the day of the attack but had since stabilized. The problem soon would be infection, which was almost sure to set in given the unsanitary conditions. Admittedly, Peeta was proving tougher than Haymitch had thought. He knew the boy was savvy but assumed his relatively easy life had left him soft. He was a-ok with being mistaken about that.

Haymitch’s life would be easier if Katniss and Rue would dedicate themselves to locating Peeta so he could watch over them all at once. It would help sell the star-crossed lovers narrative, even if Peeta didn’t make it. Instead, the girls decided to destroy the Careers’ supplies. He’d give Katniss this much: she didn’t think small. Haymitch only saw one small aspect of the plan that troubled him. Splitting up was fine; using greenwood fires to draw the Careers away from their camp should work. He did not like the fact that they planned to use mockingjays to transmit signals to each other, however. Perhaps Katniss didn’t understand that mockingjays were considered an embarrassing failure by the Capitol. It was bad enough that she wore one as her token. He sensed that doing more to link herself with a wild, uncontrollable force of nature would be unwise.

 

Hoof was plainly too injured to continue, but his vitals stabilized and he did not seem to be in danger of imminent death. Bolt sat helplessly at his console. There was nothing he could do. He had no money and no way of drawing in more, not with his tribute so badly hurt. Even a truly risk-mad Capitolite would balk at betting on him now. Hoof stirred a bit, then began to rock back and forth. Before Bolt could become too encouraged, he heard that the boy was muttering a prayer. “Allfather in heaven, hallowed is your name…”

_Shut up, you fool_ , Bolt implored, but even if he’d been there in person he could have done little to help. Hoof was only semi-conscious, operating on his deepest instincts. Bolt maintained his solemn vigil as a fireball launcher whirred back to life. It gave off its customary whoosh of warning, but Hoof did not respond. Another direct hit removed all doubt that the boy from 10 could recover. The Gamemakers delayed firing his cannon for a few minutes, so that his body had time to stop smoldering before the main feed switched over to show his undramatic death. No prayer, no second fireball, just a crippled boy expiring from previous arena injuries.

Caesar would ask Bolt if he thought it was fair. That question always appeared in the exit interview when a tribute died from the actions of the Gamemakers rather than those of other tributes. Bolt would have to say that all was fair in the course of the Games, and that it had been an accident anyway. He figured he’d probably better get started rehearsing those lines now; it might take a some practice to deliver them convincingly.

 

The Career mentors voted to send three doses of tracker jacker antidote to their tributes after receiving a few overnight sponsorships. (“Cashmere says, ‘You’re welcome,’” Gloss muttered). The antidotes would not be as effective now as they’d have been yesterday, but at least their tributes would be hallucination-free and ready to hunt again. The gift required almost all their money, but they could earn it back with a few more kills. One more death and the tribute pool would be down to the final eight, when even Games dilettantes started to pay attention and open their credit accounts.

There was a nervous tension in the air of the control room, however. The Career mentors would have been more comfortable with the usual aura of dread or fear from the others. Instead, they felt too much hope and resolve. This year, the non-Careers were not just playing hide and seek. They all seemed to be enacting their own strategies.

Porter approved of Fynch’s attitude about approaching the Career camp. She was bold but had done her research beforehand. She knew that the supplies were booby trapped with mines, and she had observed Aldiss’s path through more than once. They’d caught a spot of luck when the Careers took Aldiss along for their hunting expedition to investigate the distant smoke signal. Porter assumed it had to be some sort of trap. Any tribute who survived this long knew that lighting a fire was a cry for attention. Of course, the Careers might like their odds against any combination of remaining tributes at this point. Fynch scampered away after her supply raid carrying a decent haul. She could keep this up as long as she needs to, Porter thought.

Haymitch tried to will Katniss the patience to figure out what she was seeing as she watched Fynch leap and tiptoe around the Careers’ huge stockpile. It took longer than he liked, but he finally saw it dawn on her. Then, her smile spread to an unsettling degree as she plotted how to use it to her advantage. He hated that smile, generally. He hated it more as she began to fire arrows into the pile, wasting them as far as he could tell. Suddenly, a bag of apples broke open, releasing the fruit to bounce down and trigger several different mines at once. His screen momentarily blanked out from the overwhelming power of the explosion.

Katniss cut her escape a little closer than Haymitch liked. After being stunned and disoriented from the blast, she managed to tuck herself into the foliage just as the Careers, led by Cato, sprinted back to camp.

Cato’s vitals were spiking red from pure rage. He tore his hair and ranted to the point that Lyme resolved to go back and look over his psych tests to see what they'd missed. The loss of the supplies put him under severe stress to be sure, but a cadet who earned the right to represent District 2 as tribute should display more mental resilience. He was making them look undisciplined.

With little warning, Cato grabbed the boy from District 3 from behind and snapped his neck.

“That was uncalled for,” Lyme acknowledged to Wiress and Beetee. It wasn’t quite an apology, but Aldiss had been part of the alliance, and District 2 generally made a point to officially sever the pact before turning on a former ally. Sneak attacks were for the weak, in their opinion.

“Final eight,” said Wiress. “Congratulations.” From her, it passed for a joke. The remaining Careers had just lost their biggest advantage, and none of the other tributes could be taken lightly. In her expert mathematical opinion, the odds had shifted significantly in the favor of the outer districts.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Final 8: _Marvel (1), Clove (2), Cato (2), Fynch (5), Rue (11), Thresh (11), Katniss (12), Peeta (12)_

The Games reaching the final 8 stage always caused a media frenzy. Districts 1 and 2 boasted enough past victors that those not traveling to the Capitol could easily organize interviews and help present their tributes’ backgrounds in their most appealing light. In fact, District 1 held the position of PR representative on par with the importance of the tribute’s actual mentor. District 5, while poor in victors, was rich in resources allowing it to muster slickly produced interviews with the tribute’s proud family. Districts 11 and 12, with no spare victors or resources, were left to scramble as best they could.

Augustus Braun opened his arms expansively to greet the visitors to Marvel’s childhood home. Victor of the 67th Games and PR representative for District 1 for the past 5 years, his physique was still so perfectly toned that he appeared ready to re-enter the arena or pose for a fitness magazine, whichever was needed.

“As you can see, thanks to the blessings of the Capitol, Marvel lacked for nothing in his early life. He wanted to show his own worth, however, so when a younger boy was reaped, he bravely took his place to do honor for their shared district.”

Though broadly true, the story was basically the same every year. The audience didn’t seem to mind, for District 1 was more about the visuals than the narrative. Fit, attractive teenagers, stores full of fine jewelry, gold gilding on all the signs – they sold their image as the district of luxury very well. Even when the featured tribute hailed from the gold mining sector or the service class, they were always shown as winners, cradle to (hopefully distant) grave.

District 2 was much less coy about pretending their tributes were not trained specifically for the Games starting at an early age. Family interviews tended to be brief and unenlightening because the children spent little time at home after age 10. Most of the footage would involve the tributes’ time at the academy, the Junior Peacekeepers’ Training School as it was officially known. Almost all of its graduates did enroll at the Peacekeepers’ Academy, but every year two of them entered the arena instead. The residents of District 2 were fully aware and supportive of this sacrifice. They treated the “junior peacekeepers” like royalty and only wondered why most other districts failed to train their best and brightest to protect their most vulnerable.

Fermi Tesla, District 5’s only victor not to travel to the Capitol, had the tricky job of showing Fynch’s home without revealing its true size and amenities. While not as large as the victors’ mansions, Fynch grew up in a house that would be the envy of almost any Capitol resident. In the Capitol, citizens were packed into tight apartments with little greenery other than a shared courtyard. Many District 5 houses had manicured lawns, fruit trees, and even rose bushes. The power plants were so efficient that the district needed very few people to run them. Most of the other citizens served various merchant and support roles in the towns. Almost no one took tesserae. There was little crime. Tesla’s greatest challenge was subtly highlighting enough flaws in District 5 that Capitol viewers would not be jealous.

District 11 did not as standard practice allow interviews to be conducted within the villages of the tributes. Instead, a representative member of the tribute’s family would be brought to the district’s Justice Building and the interview filmed there. Officials claimed this was due to the district’s expansive size, that they could not spare the resources to escort the film crew so far from the central city. In truth, the district was managed too aggressively to risk bringing camera crews near the active work areas. Citizens were forever being whipped in the background of shots, or cries for mercy might be heard over the person being interviewed. They did their best to keep such matters contained.

Thresh’s father had been escorted over from the bar where he usually spent his afternoons. He’d lost an arm on the belt of an apple picking machine years ago and left it to his wife and children to support the family. A peacekeeper sat nearby just off camera. He didn’t draw a weapon or make any overt threats. His purpose was to ensure that the interview did not veer into dangerous territory. A one-armed alcoholic might think his life could get no worse, but the peacekeeper made the point that there was further to fall.

Rue’s mother stood in the Justice Building wearing her best dress and only pair of shoes. The rest of Rue’s family were hard at work in the fields, but she gave up a day’s wages to beg for her daughter’s life. There wasn’t a dry eye in the building once she finished describing Rue’s precious spirit and how the world would be a lesser place without her. Of course, Capitolites cried easily, and once they had the footage they needed they wrapped up their equipment and moved along.

Mayor Undersee had the responsibility of showing the Capitol guests the presentable parts of District 12. Peeta’s family was not much of a challenge. Their tidy bakery and well scrubbed siblings came across as wholesome as, well, freshly baked bread. Hopefully they would edit out the crass comment Mrs. Mellark made about their business being up with all the attention.

Katniss’s family presented more problems. The videographers wanted to interview Katniss’s cousin Gale, whom most of the Seam knew was not truly her kin. Her mother was stiff and too quiet on camera. Their house was too much of a shack, and nowhere nearby was any better. The only shining light was little Prim. Her ethereal beauty and gentle nature brought out the protective instincts of everyone who saw her. Many a Capitolite viewer swore that they would have volunteered themselves for such a sweet girl. Of course, that was easy to say since they had no possibility of being called upon to do so.

 

Katniss spent a cold night huddled under her plastic tarp within a stone’s throw of the Career’s camp. Lighting a fire was out of the question, as was Haymitch sending her any kind of aid. Her vital signs did not show imminent danger, but he could tell that something was off. He zoomed in on her face, cursing her unknowing lack of cooperation until she held still long enough for him to get a good look. There was a mass of dried blood just outside her left ear. Burst eardrum, probably. Nothing he could do about it while she was in the arena. If she lost all her hearing, she was good as dead, but he saw no blood on the right ear. The line between life and death was narrow, but she remained on the up side of it for now.

The Career mentors could see from the main feed’s coverage that Katniss was hidden near the camp. Each of them separately weighed the pros and cons of trying to get a message to their tributes. The Gamemakers wouldn’t allow through anything so blatant as ‘12F NE bushes,’ but a more subtle hint was possible. Still, the pack had lost its entire stash of food and supplies. Every dollar would likely be important later, and momentum (so significant for gamblers) seemed to be on Katniss’s side. They decided the risk of penalties from the Gamemakers, possibly even being prohibited from sending further gifts, was too great and did not attempt to exploit the opportunity.

Haymitch shook his head in disbelief as the Careers stalked off into the woods to hunt, missing Katniss hidden only yards away. She was alone, nigh-unconscious, dead to the world. All the Career mentors needed to do was drop a parachute when one of their kids patrolled anywhere near her location. The gift would be sure to bring the others running, and if they didn’t spot her then, well, they didn’t deserve to win. The Career districts had gotten into the habit of thinking that just because they have more victors, they also have superior tactics. That degree of arrogance was dangerous and exploitable.

Porter had been distraught when the Careers' supplies were destroyed. She planned for them to be Fynch’s source of food as well. Fynch took the loss with surprisingly high spirits, however. She explored the empty camp and picked through the destroyed supplies, even finding a few items of use. She laughed, as if truly pleased for the first time since the gong rang to open the Games.

Porter realized that Fynch finally saw an actual possibility of winning. She may have been fooling herself before about keeping out of everyone’s way, but now the Careers were actually at a disadvantage. They would need to force the Games to a swift conclusion or risk growing hungry and weak. Fynch would only need to remain hidden until the best fighters had killed each other off, then plan a sneak attack of some kind. By no means was it a sure thing, but it had significantly less holes and wishful thinking than her previous plans.

Thresh was on the move at long last. He’d slept restlessly and woke to no better options than to find food in the more populated parts of the arena or collapse from hunger. He chanced upon some snares probably set by the District 12 girl and stole the squirrels caught within. He used his teeth to tear into their bodies and scrape the raw meat from their bones. Chaff wondered if such a display would earn him the price of a single match. It did not, but perhaps that was for the best; he might embarrass himself trying to build a fire. Thresh had not spent much time at the survival stations. Next year, Chaff would have to remedy that for their tributes. His nature was far more canted to cynicism than optimism, but he was feeling the weight of the many kids he’d written off over the years. He didn’t see how his district could make more of an effort, but something had to change.

 

Haymitch squirmed in dread as Katniss methodically checked the sites of the greenwood fires Rue was supposed to have set. The first two were as expected, but the third had been gathered but not lit. Katniss would know that meant something had gone wrong yesterday. And it most certainly had.

Seeder nearly peeled the skin off his arm when the net came down on Rue. She dragged him over to her console, and they watched Rue helplessly struggle against the net. It was a wonderful trap, lined with barbs and counterweighted to pull shut once triggered.

“It’s not one of hers,” Haymitch said, not that that was of any importance now. He could tell the design was far more complicated than a mere hunting snare. This was the work of the boy from 3, if he didn’t miss his guess. Probably he’d set up an area for retreat once he lit the fuse on whatever grand finale he’d plotted. District 3 didn’t win often, but when they did, it was messy.

“I don’t think she’s strong enough to get free.”

“It’ll be fine. Once Katniss gets clear of the Careers' camp, she’ll come looking while they’re distracted. No one else is a threat. The girl from 5 is still mostly out of her mind on tracker jacker venom, and Thresh isn’t going to hurt her. No way the Gamemakers release mutts tonight with everything else that’s going on.”

Of course, then Katniss had to nearly blow herself up and get knocked basically unconscious. The Careers hunted the forest all night, spreading themselves temptingly thin to reach more territory. Marvel finally found the little captive mere minutes ago. Haymitch would never tell Katniss how close the timing had been. If only she’d spent less time at their original meeting place, she could have had Rue cut free and left behind only a busted snare. Instead, Rue herself was now a very active trap aimed right at Katniss.

 

Gloss wasn’t sure how Marvel’s toying with the District 11 girl would look on the coverage. Killing her was one thing – that was the whole point of the Games – but torture seemed a poor option. He’d hear no end of grief from Lyme, who insisted the younger ones be given swift, clean deaths whenever possible. It would also repel more sponsors than it attracted, though admittedly the ones who liked that sort of thing _really_ liked it.

After a bit of observation, he realized Marvel didn’t plan to hurt Rue, at least not right away. Well trained in character motivation by years of acting classes, Marvel could tell that Rue reminded Katniss of her sister, the sister whose place she’d taken on the reaping stage. He intended to use her to draw out Katniss. So much for District 1 being all looks and no brains!

Marvel listened carefully for any sign of Katniss. Hearing something or perhaps growing impatient, Marvel pushed his spearpoint under Rue’s chin, but she refused to call out. She knew better than anyone that Katniss would rush heedlessly to her rescue. In a swift move, Marvel poked the spear into the ground and used it as a lever to pry Rue’s arm out of its socket. She couldn’t keep herself from screaming, a high agonized sound that carried far into the forest.

“Katniss! Katniss!” Rue cried. In her pain and terror, she tried both to warn her off and beg for help.

“Rue!” Katniss called back. She soon broke into the clearing.

Now that she was of no more use to him, Marvel drove his spear into Rue’s stomach.

 _That might have been a mistake,_ Gloss had time to think before the arrow hit Marvel in the throat. He fell to his knees and then pulled out the arrow, removing any doubt about survival. Marvel's cannon fired as Gloss received ‘Good Try’ pats of condolence from his fellow Career mentors.

Even Haymitch, who always claimed his heart was made of anthracite coal, could not watch Katniss tend to Rue. He took a long walk as she sang, needing to go all the way to the basement to be out of ear’s reach of a screen playing the Games. When he returned, the coverage showed Rue’s body being lifted into the hovercraft. Someone (guess who) had surrounded the child with flowers. She appeared to be taking a peaceful nap in a meadow.

Tears dripped off Seeder’s chin and onto her console. Thousands of donations, 25 and 50 cents at a time, arrived from her district as Katniss Everdeen sang to their dying child. She needed to let her know that the kindness she displayed had moved a nation. Seeder sent her a gift of District 11 bread, the only means she had at her disposal to communicate her gratitude.

 

The announcement about a rules change allowing for two winners if they were from the same district went off like a bomb in the control room.

Try as he might, Haymitch could not keep the grin off his face. It wasn’t so much the change itself. He trusted that as far as he could throw Lyme… with Brutus standing on her shoulders. The way Katniss squealed “Peeta!” though, _that_ had potential. Hell, the girl probably wasn’t even acting. That particular skill did not seem to be in her bag of tricks, or quiver of abilities or whatever. Hot damn! She cared! The viewers noticed it, too. Donations had turned from a trickle (for remaining good will over the way she’d handled Rue’s death) to a flood. He would not be the tiniest bit surprised if she had the fattest bank account of the lot right now.

“What the fuck is this? They never change the rules! There’s barely any to begin with, and now they’re changing them when we’re mostly done?” Brutus complained.

“It’s bullshit,” said Chaff. Yesterday, he’d have been the second biggest advocate of the change (after Seeder). Today he found it transparently targeted to favor a pair of kids that weren’t his.

Porter snorted in agreement. Admittedly, the boy from her district had been a lost cause, but she knew Gamemaker manipulation when she saw it.

“Is anyone buying this?” Lyme asked the room at large. Even though District 2 was the only other district besides 12 to still have both tributes remaining, she knew the Gamemakers did not have Clove and Cato in mind for this twist.

“Keep your pantyhose on, Lyme. Don’t you think we should give it a chance?” Haymitch smirked.

Lyme had never even attempted to wear pantyhose in her entire life. “Are you kidding me? You don’t really think they mean it. You of all people.”

Haymitch sat back, startled… not so much about how right she was, but that she’d been the one to say it. He replied, “You of all people are saying that the Capitol can’t be trusted?”

Lyme looked uncomfortable. Her good Capitol citizen façade slid back into place. “No. Not at all. I just didn’t think they would want to deprive viewers of a final duel, especially when both the potential single district match-ups are so interesting. District 2 tributes always give a good fight, and putting your lovebirds against each other would be… dramatic as well.”

“Yes it would. Yes it would. But they’re young and naïve. They don’t know that,” Haymitch said sadly.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Final 6: _Clove (2), Cato (2), Fynch (5), Thresh (11), Katniss (12), Peeta (12)_

 

“You and me, kid,” Brutus said, clinking tumblers with Lyme. Years ago, he choose brewing and distilling as his post-victory talent, and ever since he practiced the art with meticulous attention to detail. As disciplined as any victor from District 2, he did not overindulge, but always saved a choice bottle from his private reserve to toast the Games with his co-mentor and best friend.

“And to Cato and Clove,” she added. She took a sip of this year's offering. The smoky liquid inflicted its mellow burn as she drank slowly and judiciously. She couldn't afford a loss of self-control. They were still pretending that both their tributes could come home this time.

“Absolutely. They’re getting close. That Peeta kid is going to die on his own in a hot minute. The 5 girl can’t fight. All they have to do is get through Katniss and Thresh, and they’ll have an interesting finale all set up.

“From your mouth to the Gamemakers’ ears,” Lyme said. She took a larger sip. At least they weren’t pretending too hard.

Cato and Clove were constantly on the move now, covering one another well and fully prepared to bring the Games to their favored ending. They each had a set of night vision glasses and could maintain the pace for a day or two without the need for sponsor intervention.

“No worries. They make a good team, y’know? And they can both fight, unlike the District 12 pair. They’ve got this,” Brutus said.

“I wish the Gamemakers would drive them all together again. What’s the hold up?” Lyme had a sinking feeling she knew. The Gamemakers wanted the District 12 lovebirds to reunite, and they were willing to allow everything else to grind to a halt until that happened. She’d never really understood the appeal of romance vids, but they topped the charts frequently in the Capitol. Now the Gamemakers had found a way to incorporate that element into the Games, and they didn’t seem keen on letting it go.

 

Haymitch was only slightly more hopeful than Brutus about Peeta’s chances. He knew they had enough money in their account to provide him with food and medicine, but Katniss had to find him first or it would go to waste. The boy was practically helpless.

Katniss was trying, and she was really quite adept at tracking, but she had no idea how impressive Peeta’s camouflage skills were. The main feed played wacky slapstick music as she crept around his expertly hidden, barely conscious form.

Peeta finally found the strength to speak, resulting in a comic double-take on her part that fit in perfectly with the silly build up. Then, she nearly stepped on him. The Capitol audience were surely laughing themselves stupid.

At last, Katniss hauled Peeta out of the mud. She rolled him to the stream, tearing an unearthly, stifled scream from his throat. _Bet that wiped the smiles off most of their faces,_ Haymitch thought. She gradually cleaned off all the mud, and she and Haymitch both were able to evaluate the extent of Peeta’s injuries.

Until she got to his leg, Haymitch was feeling pretty optimistic. She could treat the stings and burns. His vitals were decent. He needed pain killers, maybe some antibiotics, and he’d be back on his feet. When she uncovered the leg, however, Haymitch could see they had more serious problems. There was an established infection, clearly. Also muscle damage, maybe nerve damage. He wasn’t going to be running around the arena any time soon.

An avox arrived in the control room with a message for Haymitch about an urgent call from his district. He reluctantly left Katniss tending to Peeta and picked up the call in the break room. To his great surprise, Katniss’s mother was on the other end. Haymitch remembered her as a mousy, quiet woman, but the voice coming from District 12 sounded steady and confident.

Mrs. Everdeen wasted no time with pleasantries. She was probably using the mayor’s phone and did not want to impose on his generosity. She rattled off the names of drugs that would be useful for Peeta and ones that Haymitch should avoid as ineffective at this stage. Her prognosis was grim, and he wanted to disregard her. However, she was not trying to convince him to conserve money to spend on Katniss, but rather to save for more expensive medicine. She truly believed they could both come home.

By the time Haymitch returned to the control room, Katniss had Peeta settled in a small cave. He looked so much better that Haymitch again was tempted to send the cheaper medicine and hope for the best. He forced himself to take note that Peeta still claimed not to feel hungry despite several days without food. Katniss kissed him to stop him from talking about not surviving the Games. Haymitch used the opportunity to send a pot of broth, providing both something that Peeta should be able to keep down and a message to Katniss about continuing the romance angle.

 

Thresh did so much better after leaving the grain field that Chaff began to suspect the Gamemakers were intervening benevolently for once. Food seemed to practically fall into his path. Sure, there were occasionally poisonous berry bushes mixed in with the healthy ones, but Thresh spotted those like a champ. He gained back his lost weight and looked strong and keen once again. Perhaps there were too few tributes left to exploit the available resources, but Chaff couldn’t help but notice that the best foraging lay in a path towards the Cornucopia.

The generous resource distribution turned out only to be true for Thresh’s quadrant of the map. The other tributes were finding food scarce, and only Katniss was well versed in hunting game. Few plants were familiar enough to be trusted, at least at the tributes' present stage of hunger. If the Games stalled out for a while, desperation might drive them to some experimentation. Fynch chose to conserve her energy by hiding in a small cavity in the underbrush. Cato and Clove hunted for tributes and hoped that they could end the Games before needing to make any risky decisions.

 

The morning after Katniss and Peeta’s reunion, Haymitch could tell that Mrs. Everdeen had been entirely correct in her evaluation of Peeta. While his superficial injuries were healing nicely, the slice on his leg was rapidly turning mortal. There were tell-tale signs of blood poisoning and, from the green tint of Katniss’s face, the smell of decaying flesh. Still, Haymitch had an astounding amount of money in the kids’ account. If the medicine she’d mentioned was on the list, he’d buy it. His brain called this a stupid move, overly sentimental; he’d be better off saving the money to pull Katniss through whatever they would throw at her. His gut said it was the right call, however. The Capitol viewers, and more importantly the Gamemakers, liked the star-crossed lovers plot. If Katniss let Peeta die and went on with her life too easily, they’d never forgive her.

Haymitch squawked in outrage at seeing the price list. The medicine he needed was on it, but grayed out – unavailable – for the next 24 hours. The Gamemakers were up to something; that was clear. He doubted it could be anything good.

Most of the remaining mentors greeted the announcement of the feast with mixed feelings. District 2’s were faintly positive about it. Cato and Clove didn’t really need anything, in their opinion, but perhaps that meant the Gamemakers were offering them an advantage. Poison antidotes, gas masks; really any cards the Gamemakers were willing to tip would provide valuable knowledge at this point. Porter and Chaff knew their tributes could use food and weapons, but were unsure if the risk of retrieving them was worth the reward.

Only Haymitch saw the announcement as uniformly good news. This was why Peeta’s medicine was unavailable, so it could be their reward. Katniss had an advantage in that her primary weapon was a bow. She could snipe off the others and then take what Peeta needed. She might not kill them all, but she should be able to narrow the odds a bit.

Peeta, of course, had to be the difficult one this time. He refused to allow Katniss to risk her life for him, doing so much as to threaten to follow after her making enough noise to draw in the other tributes. Haymitch was in no mood to coddle his pride while trying to save his life. He sent Katniss a vial of sleep syrup, figuring that with her mother’s healing business, she would know its purpose and what to do with it.

They had a delightful lover’s quarrel where Peeta came across as noble while Katniss seemed self-sacrificing. You’d think these kids were raised on Capitol romance vids rather than scrambling to keep their heads above water every day of their lives. The betrayal in Peeta’s eyes as the sleeping syrup kicked in made Haymitch feel uncomfortable and for the who-knows-whatth time, he wished for his flask. Whoever made it out, he’d present him or her (probably her) with a flask full of Brutus’s best high-test liquor. He knew well that numbing the pain was an essential part of being a victor.

 

Porter did not approve of Fynch’s strategy of waiting inside the Cornucopia for the feast to begin. If she could have done something to countermand it she would have, but the rules of the arena left the final decisions down to the tributes. Fynch would be able to grab her own bag for a near certainty at the cost of giving the others a free shot at her. At the very least, Katniss’s skill with bow and Clove’s with throwing knives were well known. Fynch must feel desperate to take such a risk. This close to the end, Porter blamed herself for every tiny mistake. Here, her sin was keeping Fynch’s family too well fed. If Fynch had more experience with hunger, she would know that she’d barely skipped more meals than the average outer district child did in a week. Porter could do nothing to rein in her willful tribute/niece, however, so she waited for the sunrise with trepidation.

As soon as the backpacks rose from the ground, Fynch grabbed the one marked ‘5’ and sprinted into the woods. She wisely left the others alone and did not stick around to see if further gifts were forthcoming. The other tributes sat nonplussed for long enough that Fynch escaped with no pursuit. Porter almost laughed that all the night’s worry had been for nothing. Perhaps the girl deserved more credit than she’d been willing to give. She’d have to take some risks, after all, if she wanted to win.

Fynch ran back to the bolthole she’d created for herself in the underbrush. She unzipped the bag to reveal a dozen high-protein, high-calorie meal sticks. With some rationing, they could easily hold her until the end of any reasonable length Games. Porter’s elation soon turned to horror, however, as Fynch gulped down four of the sticks. The rich meal was far too much for her shrunken stomach, and she vomited it all out. Worse, she wasted two more repeating the experiment. By the time she finally kept a seventh one down, she’d gone through more than half of her reward and reduced the time before she needed to forage again down to only a day or two.

 

Haymitch soon realized that he’d overestimated Katniss’s ability to think strategically while she was so worried about Peeta. She did not have the patience to wait out her opponents, ready to snipe them from afar. Not a minute after Fynch made her surprise getaway, Katniss sprinted toward the Cornucopia. She obviously feared that someone else would take Peeta’s medicine and was determined not the give them the opportunity. Haymitch held his breath as one of Clove’s knives spun towards her right side. She deflected it and even managed to return fire, hitting Clove in the arm. _Damn, that girl could shoot!_

Katniss scooped up the tiny District 12 pack, but her damaged ear couldn’t warn her of the second incoming knife. It sliced open her brow, and her return shot missed cleanly. Clove tackled her and bore her to the ground. Haymitch didn’t foresee any possibility for rescue. Peeta remained in their cave, far too ill to move. No sponsor gift seemed able to turn the tide, and she couldn’t have retrieved it in any event. Even if she wiggled loose from under Clove, Cato must be nearby keeping watch, just as she would have had Peeta do if he’d been up to it.

District 2 tributes were not usually prone to gloating, but Clove seemed intent on getting in a few taunts before the coup de grace. Brutus didn’t like it. She was allowing her anger about the fresh arm wound and simmering envy over the training score to draw out the drama. That was District 1 bullshit. District 2 did their duty without the fuss.

To the slack-jawed surprise of everyone in the control room, Thresh suddenly pulled Clove off of Katniss and dangled her a foot above the ground. He shook her, demanding answers about Rue. She failed to convince him that she wasn’t responsible for his district mate’s death, and he caved her head in with a rock. Chaff hadn’t thought the boy had it in him. Finally, he’d come into his power, and it was more impressive than anything Chaff had imagined. He entertained a fantasy of Thresh finishing the Games right then and there. It was not meant to be, however. Katniss convinced him that she had truly been an ally to Rue, and Thresh let her go, along with the District 12 supplies. He did manage to escape with both his own bag and the District 2 one, which put him far above Chaff’s estimates for the evening.

Cato ran toward the slumped form of Clove, ignoring Katniss and Thresh. There was tenderness in his eyes as he begged her to stay with him, and promised her that they could go home together. Not even the best trauma surgeons in the Capitol could have helped her, however, and Clove’s cannon fired before long.

“That was a rough one,” Lyme said. She covered one of Brutus’s shoulders with her large hand. “Let’s take a break. Pour one out for her.”

“Yeah,” Brutus said, his bass voice low and muted. “She had spirit. Most years she’d be the one who made it home.”

“You said it. Bring the rest of your whiskey. I think we’ll need it,” Lyme said.

 

Chaff was glad that the District 2 mentors temporarily left the control room following Clove’s death. He didn’t think he could have kept from crowing if they’d been present. He still barely managed to tamp it down enough not to draw Haymitch’s attention. He and Haymitch were good friends, but the Games did not generally allow for that to be a factor. Haymitch’s girl was clearly a big threat, and Thresh had just pulled a wonderful neutralizer out of the Cornucopia.

The District 11 bag held some non-perishable food and a wicked-looking machete. Thresh was not trained in weapons, but he’d cut plenty of deadwood in the orchards. He should be able to put the weapon to good use, especially since he’d demonstrated to himself that he was capable of purposefully killing another tribute. The District 2 bag put the cap on Chaff’s visions of the winner’s crown for Thresh. It contained two sets of body armor. The small one was useless, but the large one should fit Thresh just fine. It would protect everything but his head, feet, and hands from slashing or piercing weapons. If he had to bet, he’d lay money that arrows would prove especially useless against this armor. The Gamemakers were testing Katniss’s shot-making ability to its utmost.

Not being a fool, Thresh donned the armor right away, then ate a hearty dinner. He seemed to appreciate the gravity of the situation. His immediate needs fulfilled and equipped with every advantage available, he accepted that the odds were as in his favor as possible. He began stalking back toward the Cornucopia.

Cato compartmentalized Clove’s death to be analyzed another time and was already tracking Thresh with vengeance in mind. They met on the rocky hillside overlooking the Cornucopia, and began what would become enshrined as the most epic Games battle of the past decade. Cato had superior training and discipline as well as a longer reach with his weapons of choice: spear and sword. Thresh was taller and stronger and, of course, had the body armor as a hidden surprise. The combination of fury, shock, and disbelief on Cato’s face the first time he thought he had struck a mortal wound only to have it bounce off became an instant meme.

Their battle proved so compelling with the audience that the Gamemakers did whatever they could to prolong it. Whenever one would gain a seemingly dispositive advantage, part of the arena would become unsteady or the visibility would decrease due to fog or storm. By the end of the wild two-day brawl, the Gamemakers took to hurling lightning bolts at the pair. Finally, Cato managed to pin Thresh’s foot to the ground with his spear, then decapitate him with the sword. Triumphant, he hurriedly stripped the armor off Thresh before his body could be taken away by the retrieval shuttle.

“Good game,” Lyme said offering Chaff a handshake. He rebuffed her, leaving the control room without another word.

“It’s fine. I’ve got this,” Haymitch told her and ran to chase down his friend. As someone whose tribute was competitive every year, Lyme couldn’t understand how it felt to lose a real contender, especially after such a gutting battle. Chaff would probably settle for drinking himself insensate, but he might decide on something more permanent if Haymitch didn’t step in. Chaff would do the same for him, and still might have to depending on how the next few days went.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Final Four: _Cato (2), Fynch (5), Katniss (12), Peeta (12)_

While Cato and Thresh fought their epic duel, Katniss hurried back to the cave to give Peeta his medicine. She plainly feared that her betrayal of Peeta by drugging him with the sleeping syrup would cost her his trust. Haymitch chuckled at her insecurity. She’d already dropped a wasp nest on him, aimed her bow at him, and nearly tortured him to death while treating his wounds (if his blood pressure readings were any indication). He was a diehard glutton for punishment as far as Katniss was concerned. Probably a good thing.

The Capitol-grade medicine perked him up overnight. His fever disappeared, and his appetite returned. In less than a day, _he_ was the one fussing over _her_. He insisted that she treat the cut over her brow from Clove’s knife and catch up on her sleep. The incessant rain gave them little to do but talk and grow closer.

Haymitch had to remind himself that the Gamemakers were not on his side. If it seemed like all was falling into line too cleanly for his tributes, the reason was not because he was being rewarded for his good and faithful service. He thought he could see the rails that the Gamemakers wanted these Games to run along, he just couldn’t see a way out. They were smoothing the path for the star-crossed lovers to end up in the finale, where the rule change would be revoked and they would have to turn on each other. All alliances had to eventually break, because everyone’s primary loyalty must be to the Capitol. The Games would have their victor (surely Katniss, though if Peeta had to kill himself to make that happen, President Snow may not be satisfied), and the victor would be a wretched shell of her former self.

Katniss and Peeta continued to snuggle and kiss. Peeta told a moving story about loving Katniss since they were in grade school together. Even Katniss ad libbed a good line. After Peeta said he didn’t have much competition for her affections here, she replied, “there’s no competition for you anywhere.” Haymitch couldn’t stand it anymore. They really were as sweet and innocent as the Capitol promos suggested. Far too precious to be cursed with this world. He spent a decadent sum of money sending them a feast of lamb stew, bread, cheese, and fresh fruit. They deserved it. They deserved a lifetime together, but he could only provide a brief moment of contentment.

 

As Porter previously calculated, Fynch needed to forage within two days of getting away with her feast. She reminded herself not to blame the child. She couldn’t have known how a starved body would react to taking in too much food. The rain stopped not long after Thresh died, so at least the morning would be less miserable. Fynch had been wrapped in a plastic tarp nearly motionless for over 24 hours.

She crawled from her enclosure at dawn and seemed ready to resume her stealthy survey of the forest. She swayed on her feet at first, but quickly scurried into the underbrush when she heard the District 12 pair come crashing through the woods. Well, Porter amended, the boy was crashing; the girl was as silent as a geothermal reactor. Fynch was far too smart to attack them, not even one at a time, but she did follow the boy when the pair split up to hunt.

Peeta spread all their remaining stores of food out on a tarp as if he and Katniss were planning a picnic once she returned with some game. They had apples, rolls, and cheese already. He dug up a few roots but seemed dissatisfied the bounty and headed toward the river to pick berries. Fynch snuck silently into the clearing and nibbled off some cheese, reluctantly leaving the rest alone as too conspicuous. She trailed him to the river. She would strip any remaining berries off the bush once he left with his first load. She was so clever to use the District 12 tributes' superior knowledge of plants to her advantage, Porter thought. Fynch could be a real leader for District 5; all she’ll need to do is manage to kill one person. That’s never easy and has lasting consequences, but anything is worth it to survive.

When Porter’s monitor went dark, she didn’t understand what happened. She was about to start looking for a loose wire when she glanced at Fynch’s vitals and saw the flatline.

“How?” she gasped, not ready to accept it. The main feed showed Katniss stalking through the woods, so it hadn’t been one of her arrows. Katniss startled along with Porter when Fynch’s cannon fired. She ran back to her clearing in a panic, and Porter learned along with Peeta how the nightlock berries spelled her niece's end.

Failure. Porter hadn’t expected that it would be entirely her fault. She allowed Fynch to fall into a trap due to a lapse in attention. She never should have entertained the idea that the District 12 supplies could be trusted. One warning would have chased the skittish Fynch away. Now she would have to escort her niece's body home, and look her brother in the eyes to lie and say she’d done her best.

Porter wondered if her friend Fermi would be willing to give her the morphling shots for the rest of the month. Otherwise, she’d be tempted to take them all at once.

 

Lyme sent Cato another protein bar. He was probably sick of them by now, but he’d have a year of feasts ahead of him if only he made it through the last of his competition. He hunted for the remaining tributes with skill if a lack of luck. This year’s arena was fairly sprawling, making the search an exercise in frustration. He found the clearing in the woods that the District 12 kids had used, leading to another tantrum as it was plainly abandoned.

“Hey, I was about as bad,” Brutus said, giving her a companionable shoulder bump. Even when one of their tributes was out, the other was always there for support.

“Still are,” Lyme muttered back. Seriously though, mental resilience needed to be factored more heavily into volunteer evaluations. Brutus qualified as impulsive, perhaps, but never childish. “The Gamemakers will force the finale today, surely. I wouldn’t have been surprised with last night after the girl from 5 died.”

“Yeah, today for a certainty. Patience.” He sat up straight and spoke in a prim voice. Lyme needed a moment to realize he was imitating her.

“I am looking forward to the conclusion. The end isn’t usually so stressful.” Well, it was always stressful, but the uncertainty about the rules change caused her an anxiety she didn’t know how to process. The Capitol was toying with them. It was… disrespectful.

“You should send him some real food once he starts going the right way. They’ll allow that much of a hint, and it’ll bring his spirits up.”

Lyme nodded. If anyone knew about keeping a positive focus on matters they could affect and not sweating the other stuff, it was Brutus. She genuinely couldn’t contemplate anything worse than trying to do this job without him by her side.

 

With experience, mentors developed a sixth sense about when the Games would come to a conclusion. Those who were not dead to the world from intoxication or simply unable to bear to watch tended to congregate in the control room as the end approached. Most likely, the three remaining tributes would be driven together this evening in time for mandatory viewing hours after the district work shifts.

Haymitch had rarely been more grateful to see his buddy, Chaff. He hadn’t gotten any rest other than the occasional doze in his chair for days and knew he would need to be sharp if he was to be of any help in a finale. He trusted Chaff more than any of the others because he didn’t hide anything. What you saw was what you got with Chaff, good and bad.

“Chaff, I will buy you enough liquor to wash this year's Games clean out of your mind if you’ll man my station for a few hours. I’m about to drop.”

“Do not worry about it, my friend. Of course I will help. And when they win, you and I will celebrate until neither of us can stand.”

“That’s a promise,” Haymitch said. Chaff didn’t balance out losing his family and his ability to sleep at night without a pint of white liquor in him, but his friendship was one of the few tiny goods that had come from winning.

Haymitch felt himself being shaken awake a second after his head hit the pillow on his makeshift sofa bed. The bastardly lying clock said six hours has passed, but that couldn’t possibly be right. Wiress’ face hovered directly in front of his, their noses nearly touching.

“Chaff said to come get you. It’s happening,” she whispered.

 _Way to go, Chaff,_ Haymitch thought. _You know she’s more apt to wander in her, look out the window for an hour, then leave, as she is to do what you asked. Then again, she is pretty hard to say no to (she just keeps repeating herself until you do as she says), and she’s so damn innocent even I don’t like to yell at her._

“Fine. Good. I’m comin’. Right now.” Haymitch hadn’t nearly paid his sleep debt, and his body hurt all over. He ran his hands through his hair and over his face, trying to finish waking up.

Wiress waited patiently. “Chaff said it’s happening,” she repeated.

Haymitch’s mind finally processed the message and dumped a double shot of adrenaline into his system. He sprinted back to the control room with Wiress trailing distractedly behind.

 

The first mutt to find Cato was sleekly built with buff fur and sparkling green eyes. She acted friendly at first, wagging her tail and sniffing his hand as she drew closer. He knelt to pet her, confused about this turn of events, when she delivered a vicious bite to his calf. Without body armor, that attack might have been the beginning of the end for Cato. Other mutts were beginning to emerge from the woods. If he was unable to flee the pack, they could kill him easily. The mutt’s teeth didn’t penetrate his armor, however, so he was able to jump back and take off running.

“Good thing we do all those running drills, right?” Brutus asked. Lyme could hear the forced jocularity in his voice, but she was still grateful for it.

“He had top marks. In sword and hand-to-hand as well. He’s eaten. He’s slept,” she said, for her benefit as much as his.

“He’s got fucking body armor. I mean… what did you get up to with the Gamemakers to get him that? Couldn’t have been sex. You didn’t threaten to cook for them, did you?”

“I have you know he earned everything- ah!” she gasped as one of Katniss’s arrows bounced off Cato’s chest. He didn’t even seem to notice his human competition. His pace did not slow until he reached the Cornucopia and began to climb.

“I told you – fucking body armor.” Brutus sounded smug. “If they’d given body armor back in our day, neither of our Games would have lasted a week.”

Lyme wished Brutus would tone the confidence down a touch. Cato did have many advantages, but he was also acting strangely. He lay on his side atop the Cornucopia, unable to catch his breath. He'd had a long run in from the woods at full speed, but he should have been able to shake that off. She shifted her attention to the main feed where Caesar was discussing the latest muttations to challenge the tributes.

They appeared to be a variant of the common war dog with razor sharp claws and enhanced fangs. A serious obstacle, but they trained with similar back at the academy. Caesar further explained that human-looking eyes were bred in, and the DNA of the beasts was selectively activated to cause them to resemble the tributes. Lyme again wished Cato’s sanity was more firmly screwed down. Seeing the eyes of those he’d killed and those who had died before him had shaken him badly.

The District 12 girl climbed aboard the Cornucopia and took aim at Cato.

“Get up!” Lyme yelled at her screen and wasn’t even ashamed.

He gained a reprieve when the girl heard her partner in distress and saved her arrow to shoot a mutt near him. She helped him climb onto the Cornucopia where Cato, troublingly continued to pant and gag. Peeta did not look much better. His leg was obviously still weak and he was having trouble keeping his balance on the Cornucopia’s slick metal surface. The running and climbing may well have reopened the wound on his leg. In a normal year, Katniss could have killed them in two clean shots and gone home the victor. The rules change left her torn between protecting Peeta and finding a way around Cato’s armor.

Lyme made a fist when one of the mutts distracted Katniss long enough for Cato to grab Peeta. They were at a stalemate until Peeta noticed that the armor did not cover Cato’s hands and induced Katniss to shoot there. When she did, Peeta slammed into him, causing Cato to stumble backward and slip off the Cornucopia to the waiting jaws of the mutts below.

Lyme expected that the mutts would make quick work of him. The Capitol had the finale they wanted now, and hadn’t even cheated much to get it. Soon, the lovebirds would have to face off. Cato had lost, reasonably fair and square.

The mutts did not kill him. At first Lyme blamed the body armor, but as his suffering stretched on and on, she realized that they were deliberately avoiding mortal wounds. It was a story, and he had been cast as the villain. He, not the mutts (nor the Capitol, a quiet part of Lyme’s brain whispered) was the final obstacle the star-crossed lovers needed to overcome to be together.

A rage began to build within Lyme unlike anything she’d ever felt before. The Capitol called it a game, but it was her life. It had been her life since she was seven years old, and she’d never once missed an opportunity to show her support for the tradition. This was how they thanked her, with one of the cruelest deaths on record for a boy who was just doing as he was trained.

Even Brutus was speechless. He saved his breath about telling her she didn’t need to watch this. She would feel it was her duty to witness Cato's death, and would not want any of the other gathered victors to see her leave and think her weak. As the night passed, he saw Cato’s agony chipping away at his best friend’s soul. Even the mightiest stone will shatter given the right conditions. Finally, he found the solution.

“We could send her an arrow,” he proposed softly. Lyme’s eyes were closed, but he knew she was awake and listening due to the tension in her shoulders.

“What?” she asked, confusion plain as she opened her tired, tortured eyes.

“The Gamemakers want one of them to end it, and they’re too scared to get down from the Cornucopia. She’s out of arrows. The only one they’ve got is part of the tourniquet that’s keeping the boy from bleeding to death.”

“I… don’t know,” she said. She couldn't explain the hesitation, other than to allow the Gamemakers yet more time to do the right thing.

“C’mon. He can’t win. Let’s give him some peace.”

She pulled up the gift list. Prices had doubled since midnight. They had about 80% of the cost of an arrow. “Not enough. But perhaps if I send the money to Haymitch-”

“Look,” Brutus interrupted her. On the main feed, Katniss also concluded that the Gamemakers would never put Cato out of his misery. She and Peeta removed the arrow from his tourniquet. She strode to the lip of the Cornucopia and found Cato inside. One expertly placed shot later, District 2 was finally out of the Games.

Lyme walked over to Haymitch to observe the formalities. “Congratulations,” she said. “And tell her 'thank you,'” she added more quietly.

“Uh huh. Um, you’re welcome.” He didn’t look happy, and they both knew why. No trumpets of victory had sounded, which meant that the predictable revocation of the rules change was about to happen.

Lyme return to her station. “Brutus?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not sure about next year.”

“Yeah. Me neither.”

 

Haymitch felt almost relived when the Gamemakers announced that there could only be one victor after all. At least he could stop holding his breath. Damn Capitolites. He was offended by all of it, down to their taste level. Who thinks of this as entertainment?

Peeta was quicker on the uptake than Katniss, as usual. He threw his last knife into the lake while Katniss reflexively brought up her bow to point at his chest. Peeta begged her to do it, and to her credit, she did not. If she’s too easily convinced, her life back home will be hell, and she seemed to have figured that out. They go back and forth about who could live without who, and it’s so maudlin Haymitch wants to gag. For the big finale, Peeta pulled off his tourniquet, allowing his deep leg wound to bleed freely. He wouldn't have long. Pretty nice ending, really, and Katniss won't even have to feel too bad. She did what she could.

Then, she pulled out something truly unexpected – the berries. The ones that killed Fynch. _Wait, what?_ She proposed a dual suicide so that neither has to live without the other. _Uh._

Haymitch looked around the control room. Shock was the predominate attitude, probably on his own face as well, but there were glimpses of something else. Beetee was nodding while Wiress smiled wildly. Porter liked it, sitting with her hands tented in consideration. Lyme had a very uncharacteristic glint in her eyes. Johanna was laughing like a manic. Finnick nudged Mags, “What about that? She is a lot smarter than she looks.”

 _Oh Sweetheart, what have you started?_ Haymitch asked as the trumpets blared, and his tributes – both of them – were proclaimed the victors of the 74th Hunger Games. A few decades ago, he'd have been pleased to thumb his nose at the Capitol, but now all he could see ahead was trouble.

 


End file.
